


Convincing your Neighbors that the Slime that Lives in Your Attic is Your Boyfriend [From A to Z]

by kermit_the_frog



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Rating May Change, Swearing, slime man au i guess??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 20:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kermit_the_frog/pseuds/kermit_the_frog
Summary: A step by step guide to harbouring a shapeshifting slime with out arousing suspicion





	Convincing your Neighbors that the Slime that Lives in Your Attic is Your Boyfriend [From A to Z]

a.

Ryan was living in the attic. Rather, Jeremy found them in the attic the tuesday after moving in, amongst the cobwebs and old long forgotten boxes. The sun breaking through the missing shingles of the roof and so many speckles are disappointedly met with swirling dust rather than the cool, damp floor. So many streaks of sunlight it’s like a vault with precious gems or nuclear codes at the centre. But no, it’s just a crumbling attic. That’s why Jeremy got it on the cheap. That’s why, when Jeremy finds them, he finds nothing particularly disturbing or confusing about them. The black goop at the centre of all those water stains only elicits a look of disgust and a sigh.

Because really, Jeremy doesn’t recognise that Ryan is a ‘he’, a ‘she’, or a ‘they’ at all. Jeremy sees an ‘it’ or a ‘that’, as in,‘hopefully  _ it _ ’s not poisonous’ or ‘I should probably call someone about  _ that _ ’. A bubble floats through the sluggish puddle, popping with all the tactfulness of all the mice in the walls.

Ew.

The puddle might have just stayed put, occasionally bubbling, in Jeremy’s lonely attic if Jeremy wasn’t so curious. If the puddle didn’t look so  _ weird _ . 

What the hell is it? Why is it bubbling?

How thick is it?

What would happen if Jeremy poked it?

With a coat hanger in hand and his feet firmly planted as far away from the puddle as possible, Jeremy does just that, pokes it. The black puddle was more of a slime than anything else. It had the consistency of Jello and it might be the grossed thing Jeremy has ever poked, including that dead bird. The coat hanger sunk into it and Jeremy was just about satisfied with the experience when the slime started moving.

Given context Jeremy might have thought it looks something like a person waking from a deep sleep, limbs stretching out and maybe even some kind of yawning in there. But without context Jeremy just saw this slime raise, several shapes erupting from it and twisting through the air. Without context it was terrifying and horrible. 

The coat hanger, long forgotten in the belly of the beast, was folded over as this thing - much larger now that it had been as a puddle - started to collapse in on itself and the hanger. The mass compressed smaller and smaller until, with the ping of two coat hangers falling onto a concrete floor, it was gone. In its place, as the sound would suggest, were two coat hangers. Both rusty, both metal. Exactly the same.

“What,” Jeremy gasped out as he finally was able to breath again, “the fuck.”

Now Jeremy, with one more coat hanger than before, looks between the two and then at the door, considering his options. He can pick of the coat hanger on the left. He can pick up the coat hanger on the right. Or he can go downstairs and finish unpacking and never mention any of this to anyone ever again. Because nothing happened. Jeremy must have come to the attic and passed out. None of that happened.

So if it didn’t happen, he should be able to pick up both coathangers and leave, right?

Well, Jeremy’s an idiot, so of course the dust catching the sun is pushed out of the way to make room for all five foot four of this dumbass that refuses to accept that the puddle in his attic just turned into a coat hanger. He must have had too many energy drinks, or not enough sleep, and hallucinated. Wouldn’t be the first time. One time he had an entire conversation with zipper before he realised the cat wasn’t talking back to him, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. He bends down, breath held so close to his chest, as he touches the first hanger. Nothing happens.

Now for the moment of truth. Either Jeremy should go take a nap or he’s going to have to deal with whatever this is and honestly? Jeremy just wants to take a nap either way. And again he’s very possessive of the air in his lungs when he goes to touch the second hanger and oh man does Jeremy just want to take a nap.

The hanger grabs him back. At least that’s the best Jeremy can describe as the hanger liquefies before his eyes and wraps itself around his hand. Things rapidly get worse for him because Jeremy hasn’t even begun to understand what has just happened when the slime seems to decide that Jeremy isn’t clothed enough. In the span of a blink the hanger goes from hanger to slime blob to what Jeremy can only assume looks gimp-suit esque. He’s covered in slime from head to toe, filling any available space. Nostrils, ears, there’s even a strange pressure on his eyes like the slime is trying to press in. God, why can’t it have just been an actual hanger?

And just as soon as he’s covered, he’s free again, and sitting before himself is not a coat hanger. It isn’t a slime blob either. 

Sitting before him is a perfect replica of himself.

“Well…” Jeremy says, looking himself up and down, “One of us is going to have to change.”

 

b.

Jeremy likes to think he’s handling this situation better than most. That being said he is just kind of staring at the creature -who is still wearing his face- from across the kitchen table and watching as they sit with their fingers dipped into the diet coke Jeremy got them. He can only guess they’re drinking it somehow, because the level of soda has definitely dropped.

“Umm…” Jeremy tries to break the uncomfortable silence but instead it only doubles the uncomfortable because this copy-cat-slime just kinda keeps staring at their drink, not so much as glancing at Jeremy.

“Hello?” Jeremy waves his hand in front of slime-jeremy’s face who snaps up to look at him. He’s really got to figure out a name for them, also another appearance. Can’t have a monster/alien walking around pretending to be him. Shit could get confusing fast. “Umm… what’s your name?” Jeremy begins with.

The slime just kinda looks at him and tilts their head. Maybe they can’t hear? A slow tingling sensation creeps through Jeremy’s mind, like all the hair is standing on end, and it’s not so much like he hears the voice, more than it’s like he’s thinking in a voice that isn’t his normal head voice. “Hello?” The voice says and really could this get any worse? “I cannot process audio-based communication, but I think this way is something we can both do?”

Okay, so the slime thing (he really has to figure out their name) can’t talk, but can think words to him. Not creepy at all. The little prickles are still there and honestly Jeremy’s life is already a shitshow right now, why not embrace this shit. “Hello?” Jeremy thought into the little void of all the little prickles.

Copycat Jeremy smiled which regular Original Jeremy took to mean they received the message. Alright.

“What’s your name?” Jeremy asked.

“Don’t have one,” Slime Jeremy sent back.

Things were confusing enough without having to call this thing various different names for this slime thing. “Do you want one?”

The slime seemed to perk up, a dopey smile on Jeremy’s face that he hadn't seen before. They really needed to get a new face soon. “Yes please!”

And that’s how Jeremy ended up on some ‘meaning behind the name’ website showing some shape shifting creature that lives in his attic all the different names. Apparently the slime was as indecisive about names as they were about form because Jeremy has been doing this for a solid hour and a half.

“What about Roger?” Jeremy thinks to them. If anything at least he’s gotten some practice with the whole thinking between brains thing.

“What does it mean?” The slime asks for about the four thousandth time. What does it matter what it means!

“Famous spear.”

“No.” 

Jeremy thought he would have ripped his hair out by now but There was something to Not-Jeremy’s care in picking out their name. Honestly it’s not like Jeremy didn’t spend forever when he was picking out his name. So, with more patience than he typically has, Jeremy continues, “Do you like Ryan then?” Before the slime can ask, Jeremy continues, “It means little king.”

“Yes.”

“What abo- huh?” Jeremy’s brain catches up because the slime has chosen something. They had finally picked something.

Ryan. Ryan the slime that lives in Jeremy’s attic. And still looks like him. 

”Now that we have the name covered, I guess it’s time to find a new face for you too.”

Ryan smiled and Jeremy couldn’t help but smile back.

 

c.

Life in a neighborhood in Austin  is a lot different than life in a Boston apartment building. For instance, in Boston the only time he heard from his neighbors was when he was being too loud. Today when Jeremy got home from work one of his neighbors waved to him and wished him a ‘good afternoon’. Jeremy stood there for a good half minute before he put two and two together that no other shoe was about to drop.

“Oh, uh,” Jeremy smiles awkwardly, “Good afternoon to you too… I guess.”

The neighbor just laughs rather than just turning back to the purring cat swirling in between his legs. “You’re not from Texas, are you?”

“Neither are you,” Jeremy says. Alright, calm down Jeremy, no need to be so hostile. He’d only meant that the guy clearly had a british accent.

Luckily he didn’t seem too offended. “Fair enough. I just meant that you don’t seem used to the whole ‘friendly neighbor’ thing yet. Don’t worry, soon enough you’ll be the friendly neighbor too!” Then he bent down and scooped up the cat, “I’m Gavin by the way!”

“Jeremy,” Jeremy introduced himself, “I just moved from boston,” There’s a weird slime creature the lives in my attic, is that a normal thing? Do you have a shapeshifting roommate too? Or is that just a weird thing that only I have and I shouldn’t have brought it up? “ Your cat’s really cute, what’s his name?”

Gavin practically jumped for joy being able to talk about his ‘precious little Smee’ and when Jeremy said he had three cats Gavin seemed about to explode with the possibility that he might be able to meet Jeremy’s cats. Only in Austin could Jeremy spend half an hour comparing litter types with someone he’s literally just met. Eventually Jeremy gets inside. Weird. He’d thought making friends in a new place would be hard but he thinks maybe now he has one? How many times do you have to talk to be considered friends? 

He’s lived in this house for a week and  a half and he’s already got a routine. With only Gavin as the outlier, getting home without fail is always: walk in, lock the door, throw keys at counter, call for Ryan, watch dumb tv and cook dinner, play video games, and sleep. 

With the door locked and the keys no longer in his hands Jeremy starts yelling in his head, “ _ Ryan! _ ” And normally Ryan comes leaking through the crack in the ceiling (the one Jeremy has been debating about getting fixed) to tell him what they want for dinner, but today everything is silent. Jeremy tries again, “ _ Ryan! _ ”

Nothing.

It’s weird but Jeremy doesn’t have to dwell too much on where he could have gotten to when he sees that the tv is already on, closed captions turned on and two chairs are sitting in the living room where there’s usually only one. Jeremy offers the extra chair a small poke and it turns from chair to puddle and then to the human form Ryan chose. It’s an amalgamation of several different features from several different people and Jeremy still resents him a little for choosing to be taller than him.

“ _ Sorry! Should I not be watching television when you’re not here? _ ” Ryan sounds panicked in his head and Jeremy pats them reassuringly.

“ _ It’s fine. I just wanted to know what you wanted for dinner. _ ”

Ryan does their best imitation of letting out a deep breath by deflating slightly and giving a big smile back.

Jeremy has to explain, yet again, that donuts aren’t dinner.

 

d.

Jeremy’s eating his sandwich, you know, like a person. Slimes apparently don’t eat like people. Jeremy knows that but it’s still weird to look over at Ryan who’s just holding their sandwich in hand just looking back at Jeremy. It’s like some sort of staring contest because Ryan doesn’t need to blink and only does it sometimes to look more human. That being said they certainly don’t understand how to eat like a human.

“ _ What are you? _ ” Jeremy thinks to them.

Ryan gives him that endearing little head tilt. Confused. “ _ I told you already. I’m slime. _ ”

“Yeah, but...” Jeremy chews his food, trying to figure out how to phrase this “ _... Are you an alien? Or are you from earth? _ ”

Ryan again tilts their head, still confused, “ _ Slime _ ,” They tell him again, “ _ I am a slime. _ ”

Jeremy decides to let it go for now.

 

e.

“You’ve got to be having a laugh, Jeremy!” Gavin screams from his firmly cemented last place, “An absolute laugh!”

Jeremy was indeed ‘having a laugh’ but in the more literal sense. God, he practically had tears streaming down his face. There’s only one thing funnier than how bad Gavin is at video games and it’s fucking gavin over in video games. That or the insults Gavin screams as the DNF screen fell into place. The hell is an ‘absolute smegging wank-pot’ anyway?

“Now if you’re not such a sprunking toss-hole -”

Creak.

“- let’s play… another..?” Gavin trails off as the door opens with the sound of a horror movie soundtrack. Damn old-ass house. He turns to look over at the doorway and Jeremy sees his eyebrows furrow slightly at the sight of Ryan in the doorway. “Uhh… Jeremy, who’s this?”

Good question. “Oh, that’s -” quick think of something “- Ryan -” they live here, what kind of person lives in a house with another person? ”- they’re, uh my -” roommate, butler, husband, child, boyfriend “-boyfriend.”

Gavin stares at him blankly for a second while Jeremy is rapidly pulled back into the reality that is texas. 

“How come you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend before lil’ J!” Gavin immediately turns back to Jeremy, crying out like this was some great offence, “I would have guessed this place was a right bachelor pad!”

“ _ Jeremy watch! _ ” Ryan’s voice cuts through his head.

“Uh… no, there’s two of us,” Jeremy says outloud to gavin, sending Ryan a quick, “ _??? _ ”. 

“Huh. I suppose maybe I’m only out when you come home, eh? Must miss seeing him.” Gavin smiles and Ryan reveals a stack of about four donuts they must have gotten from the kitchen. Oh no.

“Yeah, you must.” Jeremy says and he’s so incredibly glad that Gavin has apparently forgotten what manners and introductions are because while Gavin is still looking and talking to Jeremy, Jeremy has front row seats to the horrifying image of Ryan stretching his mouth to fit all the donuts into their mouth in one stack, then just closing their mouth as though chewing was a myth or something. Holy fuck.

“ _ I put the food in the right place! _ ” Ryan seems so proud of themself, “ _ That’s how humans eat! _ ”

Well, the first statement was right. “ _ Almost, bud. Gettin’ there. _ ” Fuck. This two conversation bullshit was giving him a headache. But goddamn if Ryan didn’t fuckin beam at him and fuck, the form they chose was fucking cute, alright?

Ryan just kinda leaves back upstairs after that and Gavin and Jeremy just kinda go back to GTA and yelling at each other. 

Oh man is Jeremy glad Gavin doesn’t have any manners.

 

f.

It’s funny how easy Gavin inserts himself in Jeremy’s routine, fitting in most friday evenings and almost every day right when Jeremy comes home from work. And like usual, there he was, just kind of standing around in his yard, waving to Jeremy as he came home.

“Liiiil’ J!” Gavin calls out, “When are you gonna introduce me to that boyfriend you got?”

“Oh,” Apparently that was his job? Maybe that’s why Gavin didn’t introduce himself before. That makes sense, right? “I guess I should sometime.”

“And you should meet my fiance, he’d love you, I’m sure.” Gavin has a fiance who’s a dude. Is that why he was cool with the whole boyfriend thing? Probably. 

“Oh, definitely,” Jeremy says because what else is he going to say? But as he’s saying it he remembers one giant red flag. Ryan can’t talk like a person and also can’t hear like a person. “But Ryan’s deaf,” Is clearly the next panicked statement and honestly he’s relying on Gavin’s surprise to mask how incredibly unnaturally he’d said that.

“What, like speak really loud deaf, or hearing-aid deaf, or..?” Gavin asks.

“Like completely can’t hear or talk deaf,” Jeremy says.

“Oh,” Gavin says, “So are you both free to come over sometime this weekend? We can do dinner.”

At least Ryan’s eating is getting more human-like.

 

g.

Jeremy has five days to teach Ryan how to act like a human. This should be fine right? Wrong. “ _ Now Ryan, try not to eat the fork this time, alright? _ ” Jeremy’s started giving them plastic cutlery once the first few forks disappeared into Ryan’s skin to never be seen again.

Ryan holds both the knife and fork awkwardly, but that can be passed off as just some quirk. ‘You met Jeremy’s boyfriend? They hold their cutlery like a five year old’ is a lot better than ‘You met Jeremy’s boyfriend? Yeah, they ate my silverware!’.

Fingers are crossed so tightly under the table Jeremy’s half convinced he’s going to break them as Ryan slowly cuts the food and then gently lifts the fork with just slightly too much food on it, but also acceptable. Again, eating giant bites is so much better to be known for than just straight up shoving a whole chicken leg in your face. When the fork goes in between Ryan’s lips it’s the final moment of truth. Ryan’s mouth moves like maybe they’re chewing for… well less times than it should but so far doing so much better.

The fork retracts and…

It’s whole!

Fucking 10/10 nailed the dismount, well done slime guy. Well done.

 

h.

In teaching Ryan to act more human, Jeremy’s also taken to having them help out around the house. Ryan’s taken to cleaning like a slime that eats anything to a floor full of crumbs, but other, non-dissolving based, helping around the house methods need some work.

“ _ Ryan, I’m going to need you to stop eating the raw eggs. _ ” He really doesn’t know how he expected these cooking lessons to go.

Communicating in thought is weird because sometimes it’s not a sentence that’s sent, rather just a thought that can best be described as “ _ >:^( _ “.

“ _ Please Ryan, we need those,” _ Jeremy begs them. Ryan gives a slightly reproachful look as they put the egg they were holding back.

In the end they just stick with Jeremy doing the cooking and Ryan doing the cleaning. It’s just easier that way.

 

i.

Jeremy figures out something crucial five days before The Dinner. Jeremy realizes he’s never seen Ryan read and suddenly the only thing on his mind is ‘oh my god, what if Ryan can’t read? What if they try to have them read something? Oh my god! Oh my god!’. Which is how Jeremy ended up with a whole bunch of those reading step-by-step type books. The color coded ones, where yellow is for level one readers and black is for level twelve. Just to evaluate where Ryan is in their reading level. For all Jeremy knows Ryan might be able to fully understand Beowulf and have a masters in literature.

“ _ So, Ryan, _ ” Jeremy thinks to them, gesturing to the pile of books, “ _ where do you want to start? _ ”

Ryan sits down, having learned to cross their legs without melding them where they cross (which really only looked more horrifying the more Jeremy looked at it), and rather than answering just puts their hands over the pile of books.

Maybe Jeremy should have specified what these were before.

“ _ Ryan! No! They’re not food! _ ” How did he not realise this might be a problem before?

But instead of Ryan retreating from the pile leaving nothing left, the books all sit perfectly well formed. Not a corner nibbled off. “ _ The green one about the missing dog is my favorite. _ ” Ryan tells him.

Huh?

“ _ Wait? Did you just read those? _ ” Did he just drop like sixty bucks on all these books for nothing?

“ _ Yeah! _ ” Ryan smiles up at him, holding up the green labeled book with the picture of a poorly drawn cartoon dog on the front, “ _ Here, if you want to read it too. _ ”

Really this will make things a lot easier.

 

j.

After Jeremy realizes that Ryan reads through contact, he stops freaking out so much. Instead of there being twelve thousand different little intricacies that Jeremy had to teach Ryan about so they could appear human, he just needs to feed Ryan books of humans acting human and Ryan gets the jist. Of course that means he needs to give them a quick skim through. Jeremy does not need Ryan reading twilight and thinking they should look out for vampires or something. There’s not enough time for that.

Jeremy’s light video game playing before bed have been replaced with skimming through etiquette books and highschool textbooks to throw into the pile that Ryan will absorb knowledge from in the morning. A bit of light reading, he finds, is actually a lot better to fall asleep after than four hours of Resident Evil. Who knew?

 

k.

Just before he goes to bed he skims through a sign language book. He’s thrown a couple down onto the ‘how to: human’ pile already. Those are for Ryan, so if somehow Gavin or his fiance know asl, they don’t get suspicious if Ryan doesn’t know it.

Jeremy knows enough to get by. Enough to talk to a grandparent pretty fluently, so he’s better than most. He hasn’t signed in years though, and so he looks through the book and googles phrases and online courses. Just enough to get by.

Ryan and him can always just talk telepathically though and fake it. Jeremy can picture it now, the whole ‘aw you guys are so cute it’s like you’re reading each other’s minds!’ conversation, only jokes on them! They can read each other’s minds.

Jeremy just hopes they get to play charades.

 

l.

It was a lazy afternoon. Well of course they were both panicking about the dinner, but it’s friday afternoon and there’s very little more they can do but try and get Ryan to understand some cultural references. That’s why Jeremy takes the opportunity to finally watch some movies. With Ryan though, of course.

Jeremy falls asleep somewhere around the spider scene in the third Lord of the Rings movie.

He wakes up comfortable and warm, pulling his blanket tighter around himself.

Ryan startles on top of him, just as Jeremy realizes that the blanket is Ryan, and Jeremy’s crushed under the weight of a six foot human-ish dumbass who could have just gotten Jeremy an actual blanket, like, come on.

 

m.

Jeremy does have to admit though, Ryan does make a very comfortable blanket. Very warm and soft.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this last year and Ive just now got around to posting it so whoops


End file.
